Our Sacred Oath: To Be or to Do?
Commentary
Dedicated to the memory of P.O. Stephen P. Driscoll, ESU Squad 4, Badge #17482, NYPD “Fidelis ad Mortem”
A jumble of thoughts and emotions has been pinballing off the edges of my mind as we approach the loss of Afghanistan at the 20-year milestone of 9/11. But the one thought that resonates came from the pen of Robert J. Kaplan, who wrote an article in the May 2006 issue of The Atlantic titled, “Colonel Cross of the Gurkhas.” Kaplan trekked to the remote town of Pokhara, Nepal, to speak to John Phillip Cross, an 80-year-old retired Gurkha colonel and decades-long veteran of the British Army. Colonel Cross’s service in World War II was his first and last conventional fight. Subsequently, he fought in multiple irregular guerilla wars across Asia in similar circumstances to our battles over the last decades….